When you blog or write website content, it’s important to
know your audience. You need an understanding of their knowledge base, and talk
to them where they are at, and not in a way that will send them rushing out for
the dictionary, because they won’t come back. Your customers may not have the
industry vocabulary that you have.
This is one lesson I’ve learned as a journalist. Sometimes
you have to translate the technical for your readers. You don’t want them to
consult another resource, because you’ll lose them.
Business owners who are blogging could learn a lot from
this. You simply want to be friendly to your reader.
A basic, conversational language will go a long way. This
means not using five words when one will suffice. You don’t want to tell your
readers that there are approximately five of something, when you could say
there are about five. For example, “apparently” is shorter than “It would
appear…” etc.
You’re not writing an inner-departmental memo between
scientists or doctors. You’re writing to someone who has a lot of other choices
for what they could be doing on the internet, and doesn’t have the same
industry vocabulary that you do.
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